Saturday, July 12, 2014

Please comment on how artificially low interest rates have impacted the current value of baby boomers’ retirement portfolios and should this be a consideration of the Federal Reserve?

I don’t blame the editor, who after all isn’t supposed to be an economist. But what this must reflect is what people are hearing on the financial news; I’m pretty sure that a lot of people think that all the experts regard interest rates as “artificially low”, and have no idea that to the extent that such a notion makes any sense at all — which is to say in terms of the Wicksellian natural rate — interest rates are too high, not too low.

Please comment on how artificially low interest rates have impacted the current value of baby boomers’ retirement portfolios and should this be a consideration of the Federal Reserve?

I don’t blame the editor, who after all isn’t supposed to be an economist. But what this must reflect is what people are hearing on the financial news; I’m pretty sure that a lot of people think that all the experts regard interest rates as “artificially low”, and have no idea that to the extent that such a notion makes any sense at all — which is to say in terms of the Wicksellian natural rate — interest rates are too high, not too low.